Important Public Service Announcement regarding turkey

[slightlydistrac]

Is your turkey is still in the freezer.........?

🙂🌲

Ooh - thanks for the reminder. We only have a small turkey joint, but it's in the deep freeze and will need longer than the instructions say. Will check it when I get home!

I have one of the frozen turkey crowns from Iceland that serves 8-10 people. It says 48 hours to defrost so I took it out of the freezer and put in the fridge at around 6pm last night. I just went to check it and it's still frozen solid now!

Maybe you could take it out of the fridge and leave it in a cool room until you go to bed, when it can go back in the fridge again. That will help to start it off.

It was in the car boot! We didn’t look there … luckily mum was well enough to tell us where it was!

I got the last turkey in Aldi today. I’m a bit shocked, it was on the wrong shelf and it was… £45!

@cudz I’m sure you can cook island ones from frozen. I’m after their goose to pad out our turkey.

Important Public Service Announcement regarding turkey:

Just get an ordinary sized chicken and have less expense and fuss.

@SensibleSigma yes you can cook from frozen but as I had time on my side I decided to defrost. I'm not worried as I won't be cooking it until Xmas day morning so still plenty of time for it to defrost. It's had 24 hours now so the process has started even though it still feels frozen to the touch.

@Applepoop

Last year we had 10 meat eaters

One ordinary chicken. One......... Wait a minute..............

One ordinary chicken for feeding four adults on Christmas Day, plus chicken & ham pie, chicken sandwiches, chicken soup, chicken curry, and several days' worth of meals for our menagerie of cats?

BEHOLD: THE MUMSNET CHRISTMAS CHICKEN.

It's a Christmas Miracle!

Argghh - just retrieved turkey from MILs fridge. Despite being in there since Friday evening it's still solid 😱😱😱
She must have an arctic setting!
It's currently sitting in a bucket of cold water whilst I have a major panic....

Mine came out this morning, Alexa reminded me

DH thinks tomorrow morning is soon enough. Small turkey 3 people and we're eating around 7pm 🤨

I bought a tiny (serves 2) turkey roll in M&S earlier and the instructions say 48 hours to defrost in the fridge!

Ok ours is a 3.7kg, told DH mumsnetters are taking theirs out so we have now done the same 😃👍

Do not leave it on the side to defrost! That creates a breeding ground for bacteria. Just a quick google will tell you this!

I don't want to give anyone food poisoning - but - I've often just defrosted turkey on the cold shelf in the pantry. I used to buy a frozen one as didn't have room in the fridge then just defrosted in pantry. Switched the heating off in the kitchen.

I don't think the pp is intending to take it out of the fridge to completely defrost right up to room temperature. That's not why you leave it on the side anyway. In the freezer it will be at a temperature of -20 degrees or thereabouts, and if you take it out of there and put it in a small space with a tightly-closing insulated door, a large turkey is going to take a very long time indeed to defrost.

If you leave it on the side for a few hours it will no longer be at a rock solid -20, and when you put it back into the fridge again, it won't take so long to thaw properly.

I've de-frosted turkeys on the countertop for years, because that's how my mum always did it, same with any meat we have. I just move it into the fridge whilst it's still cold (but not frozen). And I assume blasting it in the oven sorts out most bacteria?! Anyway been doing it that way for years, it takes literal days for things to defrost in my fridge.

Not the mumsnet chicken, no! I've never experienced such a chicken.

Just a chicken to feed 4 adults and then done.

We have an 800g turkey breast.
Would you get it out of freezer tonight or early tomorrow morning?

If it were me, I'd put it in the fridge tonight. A breast isn't going to take as long to thaw. You can cook some of them straight from frozen, so check the packaging.

Have you got the sprouts on yet?

I bought a fresh turkey yesterday but I remembered this morning to take a couple of my stashed proper sausages out to thaw for the stuffing (I am overseas, so they are precious for occasional Saturday morning sausage sandwiches - it is a big sacrifice!).

I had intended doing "just" a chicken this year, per DH request (after he hummed and hawed for weeks). So I bought a lovely large corn fed chicken on Sunday morning. (1st Christmas overseas and shops are different here and not as easy as home to get sorted).

His flight arrived here on Sunday night, and he asked for turkey!

So we ended up back in the supermarket yesterday for a turkey (and an extra €50 of bits because he saw what was there). We cooked the chicken yesterday (which was lovely), and enjoyed it once we'd collected DD from her train from Uni in a different city over the border.

We do enjoy turkey though so I wasn't entirely surprised.

We are having lamb this year as got a locally reared one in October. The leg was perfect size for the number of people I’m feeding this year. Got it out the freezer yesterday and hoping it defrosts in time for tomorrow.